I once worked for a company that had produced one of the first (if not the first) integrated GSM baseband & transceiver chips. From the hardware perspective, it was a crowning technical achievement and would have resulted in significant BOM savings to customers, but they weren't eating it up...why not? Customers didn't want to invest the significant time and resources to change their firmware/software stack. It didn't help that a competitor bought out a critical portion of the software stack either.

I don't think it was anything to do with technology or product readiness. Renesas just did not have the fuel run it and they wanted to focus on their core bussiness. Unfortunately mobile chipset was not one of them to give it any time to get the returns.

If the product was ready to go, then why didn't Renesas go with it? Same thing goes for the reported ST/Ericsson design that works. Companies go and get certified, but that does not mean it is a good working product ready for the market. But several companies keep saying they're certified.

@Hughston, personally, i never expected this to happen. As you correctly point out, Broadcom was doing all the LTE demos at the tradeshow, as though nothing had gone wrong. As for Renesas LTE modem, judging from some comments we received from Renesas Mobile engineers on our forum here at www.eetimes.com, the chip -- already certified by several operators -- is ready go, in the hands of a few customers. It appears Broadcom this time around has a real thing...

I was wondering if you ever expected this to happen? Broadcomm was having problems with their design but doing demos at trade shows like everything was ok. Clearly things were not ok. Now I wonder if they are buying a working design this time or not. It seems other companies have gone quiet also about their progress.

In conjunction with unveiling of EE Times’ Silicon 60 list, journalist & Silicon 60 researcher Peter Clarke hosts a conversation on startups in the electronics industry. One of Silicon Valley's great contributions to the world has been the demonstration of how the application of entrepreneurship and venture capital to electronics and semiconductor hardware can create wealth with developments in semiconductors, displays, design automation, MEMS and across the breadth of hardware developments. But in recent years concerns have been raised that traditional venture capital has turned its back on hardware-related startups in favor of software and Internet applications and services. Panelists from incubators join Peter Clarke in debate.